The primary advantage of the invention is to enable finely granular control over security policy that governs a wide variety of computing devices, systems, processes, and resources. Furthermore, the invention is not specific to security but can be generalized to any policy that might need to be applied to the use of a resource or an action a user wishes to take.
The invention is motivated by the rapid proliferation of mobile devices that increasingly have greater computing power than ever before. They also have networking capabilities and they interface with other devices and system easily via 802.11 wireless protocols and Bluetooth short range protocols, to name two of the most common. Furthermore, because mobile devices are “mobile”, they are used in different computing contexts all the time, and often, they are used in a computing context once and only once. Therefore, the rules by which these devices operate in novel contexts must by dynamic, yet secure.
Lastly, the new “Internet of Things” (IoT) whereby objects of all types are being configured with lightweight computing and networking capabilities opens a myriad of new issues related to control and security that are unique to that class of computing hardware.
The “attack surface” of computing devices is changing and enlarging, therefore new systems and methods to control and enforce security policy are needed. While U.S. Patent Application 61/673,220 (now Ser. No. 13/945,677, which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein) discloses an invention that is a framework for such control and security, it has shortcomings in the degree to which the system is context or situation-aware. Often, the context of a transaction or task that user wishes to execute is a critical component in determining if it should be allowed and if so, under what stipulations. The present invention addresses this issue and enhances U.S. Patent Application 61/673,220 to include these capabilities.